Women teachers book series in reading order

by Gillian Roberts

Gillian Roberts is an American crime writer best known for the Amanda Pepper mysteries, which feature a woman teacher of English at a preparatory school who works as a detective. Caught Dead in Philadelphia (1987) and Philly Stakes (1989) are among the Roberts titles. A second series pairs the investigators Emma Howe and Billie August. The Gillian Roberts listing begins with Easy Answers in 1982.

Stuart Palmer (1905–1968) was an American mystery novelist and screenwriter who created Hildegarde Withers, a schoolteacher who investigates murders in New York. The Penguin Pool Murder (1931) opens that series, with Murder on the Blackboard (1932), The Puzzle of the Silver Persian (1934), The Puzzle of the Red Stallion (1936) and Miss Withers Regrets (1947) after it. Palmer also wrote the Howie Rook mysteries and published as Theodore Orchards and Jay Stewart. Twenty-one books are catalogued, at a median length of 185 pages.

Cowboys, ranchers and ranch life run through Linda Lael Miller's 134 catalogued books, in historical, contemporary and western romance alike. Miller's families and places include the McKettricks, the Montana Creeds, Stone Creek, Springwater Seasons, Painted Pony Creek and the Brides of Bliss County, with a Tremayne vampire sequence off to one side. Desire and Destiny (1983) is the earliest title and The Silver Hills Boarding House the newest.

Historical romance set in the Regency and the wider Georgian period is Mary Balogh's territory. Born Mary Jenkins in Swansea on 24 March 1944, Balogh moved to Canada in 1967, taught in Kipling, Saskatchewan, and became a school principal there before the first novel appeared in 1985. The catalogue runs to 106 books, from A Chance Encounter (1985) to A Waltz to Remember (2026). Series headings include Westcott, Bedwyn Family, Survivor's Club, Huxtable Quintet, Simply Quartet, Dark Angel and Ravenswood. Mary Balogh is still publishing.

Lori Copeland, born June 12, 1941, is an American novelist with more than 95 books, who wrote romance before moving to Christian fiction. The catalogue records 101 books from 1983, the year of A Tempting Stranger and Playing for Keeps, to Barefoot Hearts (2020). Series include Heavenly Daze, Men of the Saddle, Amish of Apple Grove, Sisters of Mercy Flats, Morning Shade Mysteries and Belles of Timber Creek. Westerns, historical romance, widows and Texas appear in the subjects.

Bill Crider (1941-2018) was an American author of crime fiction. Crider's series include Sheriff Dan Rhodes, private investigator Truman Smith, college teacher Carl Burns, Professor Sally Good, Stanley Waters and Ellie Taine. Subjects tie the mysteries to Texas and extend past detective fiction into westerns. The catalogue lists 75 books from Too Late to Die (1986) to That Old Scoundrel Death (2019). Several anthology and shared-world titles in the listing carry other names beside Crider's, among them Lee Goldberg, William Rabkin and Lyndsay Faye.

Mignon F. Ballard, born in 1934, grew up in a small Georgia town and lives in Fort Mill, South Carolina. Ballard writes mysteries with women sleuths in two series, Augusta Goodnight and Miss Dimple Kilpatrick. Guardian angels, elementary school teachers and the Second World War are among the subjects. Aunt Matilda's Ghost (1978) opens a 23-book list that includes An Angel to Die For (2000). No Word for Goodbye (2021) is the last.

Debbie Macomber

245 books• 35 series

Debbie Macomber, born October 22, 1948, is an American author of romance novels and contemporary women's fiction. Six Macomber novels became made-for-TV movies, and the Cedar Cove novels became a television series of the same name, with Macomber serving as executive producer on the adaptations. Macomber won the first fan-voted Quill Award for romance in 2005 and holds a RITA Award and a lifetime achievement award from the Romance Writers of America. The catalogue counts 245 books between Starlight (1983) and A Date with Santa (2026). Series include Heart of Texas, Midnight Sons, Navy, Those Manning Men, Orchard Valley and Angels Everywhere.

Luanne Rice, born 25 September 1955, is an American novelist whose books frequently turn to nature, the sea, love and family. The catalogue lists 42 Rice titles, from Angels All Over Town (1985) to Until Midnight (2026), including Crazy in Love, Firefly Beach, The Lemon Orchard and Beach Girls. Subjects on file include sisters, mothers and daughters, Connecticut, suspense and missing persons. Series include Hubbard's Point/Black Hall, Newport, Rhode Island and Detective Conor Reid, and Rice's work has been translated into 26 languages.

Robin Lee Hatcher writes Christian and historical romance, with 103 books in the catalogue from Stormy Surrender (1983) to To Find Where She Belongs (2026). Hatcher has been a RITA Award finalist eleven times and has won it twice, and has received Lifetime Achievement Awards from Romance Writers of America and American Christian Fiction Writers. Series include Women of Hope, King's Meadow, Coming To America, Hart's Crossing, Sisters Of Bethlehem Springs, Where The Heart Lives and Legacy Of Faith. Subjects include frontier and pioneer life, Idaho and young women.

Dorothy Garlock (1919-2018) wrote historical romance, much of it set on the American frontier. The catalogue runs to 63 books published between 1980 and 2017, from Love and Cherish (1980) to The Nearness of You (2017), with the 1980s her heaviest decade. Series include Wyoming Frontier, Dolan Brothers, Wabash River, Route 66, Colorado Wind and the Tucker Family books. Garlock also published as Johanna Phillips, Dorothy Phillips and Dorothy Glenn.

Maggie Shayne, born 1965, is an American novelist with more than 70 novels to that name, and the subject tags centre on paranormal romance, vampires and romantic suspense. Awards include the RITA Award, Romantic Times Reviewers' Choice and Career Achievement Awards, and the P.E.A.R.L. Award. The catalogue holds 121 books from Reckless (1993) to Lone Wolf (2026). Wings in the Night, Texas Brands, Immortal Witches, Shattered Sisters, Brown & de Luca and Secrets of Shadow Falls are among the series.

Carla Kelly (Carla Sue Kelly, born 1947) is an American Regency romance writer and a two-time winner of the Romance Writers of America RITA Award. Kelly calls the books "dukeless" regencies, stories of ordinary people solving their own problems. An interest in the American West shapes the earliest work and the nonfiction. Since 2011 Kelly, who has a Mormon background, has written five novels about young Mormon women, among them Borrowed Light and Safe Passage. The site lists 58 books from Daughter of Fortune (1985) to Navy Captain's Convenient Wife (2026).

Jon Hassler (1933-2008) was an American novelist and teacher who wrote about small-town life in Minnesota. Staggerford, an imaginary Minnesota town, gives its name to his main series and to the 1977 novel that opens it; Rookery State College is a second sequence. Teachers, Catholics, friendship, town custom and Native American life run through 23 catalogued books dated 1977 to 2021, at a median 282 pages. Hassler held a Regents professorship emeritus and a writer-in-residence post at St. John's University in Collegeville, Minnesota.

Stephen Bly has 98 books in the catalogue, published from 1981 to 2013, and the list is likely complete. Radical Discipleship (1981) is the earliest, followed by Devotions with a Difference (1982) and God's Angry Side (1982), with Crystal's Blizzard Trek (1986) among the titles that followed and When the Cowboys Come to Town (2013) the newest. Bly series include Legend of Stuart Brannon, Code of the West, Crystal Blake Adventures, Adventures of Nathan T. Riggins, Fortunes of the Black Hills, Austin-Stoner Files, Hidden West, Old California and Heroines of the Golden West. Subjects include westerns, Christian life, women pioneers and the American West.

Janis Reams Hudson writes historical and contemporary romance, and the catalogue holds 39 books from Apache Magic (1991) to For the Thrill (2014). Apache Promise (1992), Apache Temptation (1993), Apache Legacy (1994) and Apache Heartsong (1995) came next. Subjects include westerns, Indians of North America, widows, women teachers, sheriffs and pregnant women. Series include Apache-Colton, Two Oaks, Wilders of Wyatt County, Men of Cherokee Rose, Tribute, Texas and Arapaho Touch.

Sally John writes Christian romance and family fiction, with 20 catalogued books from In the Shadow of Love (1998) to Heaven Help Heidi (2015). The series are Other Way Home, In a Heartbeat, Side Roads and Family of the Heart. Subjects include marriage, widows, women teachers, fire fighters and seaside resorts. A Journey by Chance (2002), The Winding Road Home (2003) and Flash Point (2004) are among the books.

Helen Simonson has published 3 novels over fourteen years: Major Pettigrew's Last Stand (2010), The Summer Before the War (2016) and The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club (2024). England and country life supply the settings, and the subject tags name widowers, women teachers, the First World War and man-woman relationships. Simonson's catalogue is small and still open.